Using alerts
You can set up email or SMS alerts to be triggered based on specific conditions that you configure. This allows you to maintain awareness of machines or production status even while handling other tasks. Use cases include receiving a notice when a production line reaches daily quota, following up on unusual levels of machine downtime, or immediately responding to dangerous machine temperature or vibration levels.
Configuring Alerts
In order to set up an alert you will need to use a Stack Management widget, described in detail here.
In the Stack Management Widget, click a stack’s jump icon (
) to open the Device Details panel and navigate to the ‘Alerts’ tab. This is where you create alerts, define when they trigger, and specify who will receive them.
Click the orange ‘Create New’ (
- Tag: Select the data feed, or tag, to be monitored for this alert. Multiple alerts can be created for a single tag.
- Condition: Set the logic that will trigger the alert, relative to the Trigger Value. Note that selecting a condition such as ‘Greater Than’ will send alerts periodically as long as the condition is met. Select ‘Becomes Greater Than’ to send a single alert, the first time the condition is met.
- Trigger Value: Set the threshold value that your condition will be evaluated against.
- For Duration: Set the length of time that a condition must be true in order to trigger an alert. This helps eliminate false positives caused by signal noise.
- Schedule: Determine when this alert should be active:
- Always (constantly monitored)
- Daily (allows you to set a start and end time for each day, such as day/night shifts)
- Fixed (specify a date and time range, used for planned events such as a scheduled maintenance period)
- Email/Phone: Enter the destination email addresses/phone numbers for the alert. Phone numbers require a “+” sign and country code with no spaces or dashes, as in the format +14123339876 for the United States (+1) number 412-333-9876.
- Description: When an alert is triggered, the text in this field will be sent to recipients’ email/phone and documented in the Alerts History widget.
- Alert Limit: Select a maximum frequency with which alerts will be sent.
- Enable: Toggle an alert on or off, without deleting it outright.
When you are done, click the ‘Save’ button in the upper right to begin sending alerts.
The Alerts Widget
In addition to text and/or email, triggered alerts will be displayed chronologically in any configured Alerts widget, as shown below. This allows you to maintain a log of useful events without requiring an email or phone notification.
Alert widgets will be empty until they are configured to display alerts from one or more stacks. Open the Configure Widget (
) menu to select which stacks the widget should show, and how far back in time the list should extend. Once configured, you may click the blue (
Use this feature to respond quickly to potential problems or to set up ‘heartbeat’ notifications throughout the day, keeping you aware of a device or factory’s overall status even when not actively viewing a dashboard.